Back a year and a half ago, Jeff Braisher attended a beef industry conference in Calgary, hoping to discover what he needed to know to make his business dream a reality. Turns out, it wasn’t so much a question of what he needed to know as a question of who. And as luck would have it, the who happened to be at the industry conference that day too, in the person of Brenda Schoepp.
“I didn’t go to the conference looking for someone to mentor me. I was trying to do homework and collect background information. I was hoping to have a product to sell and I wanted to understand what the marketplace looked like and what I was getting into,” says Braisher. “Brenda was speaking at the conference, I appreciated what she was saying, and I thought maybe she could help me. To be honest, I knew she was fairly well connected, but actually I didn’t really even know who she was.”
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“Fairly well connected” is an understatement. Brenda Schoepp is a very big name in the Alberta beef industry. Named one of Alberta Venture business magazine’s most influential people in Alberta, Schoepp is a highly regarded researcher, author, consultant, professional speaker and advocate for the cattle industry. In addition to co-running a cow-calf operation near Rimbey, Alberta, she owns and publishes BEEFLINK, a national weekly newsletter that discusses beef and beef cattle-marketing strategies. She also writes “Straight from the Hip,” a column that runs in multiple provincial and national publications, and she works on both provincial and national policy and research initiatives.
Schoepp also runs a strategic business planning and independent executive coaching service for primary food animal producers who are striving to add value to their businesses.
Then, as if she’s not busy enough, she also developed YouLead!, a youth-focused ag-leadership program, and she founded Women in Search of Excellence (WISE). Plus, her speaking engagement at the beef conference wasn’t a one-off. She’s a popular and frequent speaker at beef industry, ag industry and business-focused conferences and symposiums.
“Later, after she was finished her presentation, I had the chance to corner her and ask some questions,” continues Braisher. “Right away she was very perceptive. I tried to be pretty discrete about my project, but she saw right through me. I realized right then that she could be a huge help.”
So Braisher took a bold and unsolicited step further. Having just been accepted into the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association’s Cattlemen’s Young Leaders (CYL) program, he phoned the program co-ordinators and told them he’d found for himself the mentor he needed to be paired with.
Like other agricultural industry-run mentorship programs, the CYL program is a grassroots professional and leadership program designed to pass an older generation’s wisdom and experience on to up-and-coming farmers.
“The mentors are business leaders from all different segments of the industry, and from all over the country,” says Braisher. “You’ve got people who are extremely busy but are still willing to take some time out of their schedules to exchange IP. For our generation, that’s critical. Our generation is living in the information age, and I’d argue that information is our new currency.”
Schoepp was more than happy to oblige. In fact, she says being asked to be a young person’s mentor is the greatest reward one could receive for their life’s work, since it proves the younger generation notices and respects one’s knowledge, accomplishments and experience.
The year and a half that Braisher and Schoepp have worked together has fundamentally changed Braisher’s perspective, expectations, and confidence.
“Mentorship is making me really refine where I’m going. Since this began, it’s opened up huge opportunities that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. She’s helped me through strategic thinking, and she’s put me in touch with people I wouldn’t have been able to connect with,” says Braisher.
Braisher isn’t the only one to have benefited from the relationship.
“Jeff proved that agriculture is indeed exciting and through him I got to look at it with a different set of lenses,” says Schoepp. “Jeff not only is smart and candid, he is also a man of principles and values. His business conduct is exemplary and he is well researched and knowledgeable. Whenever you are in that kind of company, you too will gain important insights and lessons. I did. I felt that the journey was as much mine as his as we collectively sought solutions and made a road map for his future.
“The ones who approach you for help really have the ability to change the world whether you help them or not. They’re open to another piece of advice, another thought process. They’re thinking with the volume on loud,” says Schoepp.
More than that, though, Schoepp fundamentally believes in the concept of mentorship in the agricultural industry.
“My best piece of advice for the agriculture industry would be to work together towards a common goal rather than expending energy protecting turf. We need to create an economic environment that is enabling for future farmers, and we need to look at agriculture with a broad lens to protect our values and communities.”
In fact, she considers the failure to pass on wisdom as one of the greatest tragedies in Canadian agriculture. “Farmers and ranchers are by nature independent and that can be to a fault. We could never realize the dream of having sons and daughters in the operation when we removed them from the process. By engaging our youth and giving them responsibility, we allow for creative solutions. Experienced guidance ensures that past events are woven into future opportunities. It is the best of both worlds.”
Braisher recommends all young farmers seek out mentors, whether through formalized industry mentorship programs or through individual relationships.
“One of the commonalities I do see with people who are really effective in the agriculture industry — well, in any business — is that there are people in the background who you might not necessarily know about. Someone is there mentoring, coaching, whatever you want to call it. For myself I think it’s a requirement. A mentor helps you step out and really look at what you’re doing. A mentor gives you another accurate, objective perspective. Brenda has never said “You’re wrong,” but she constantly challenges my thinking. Sometimes my biggest roadblocks or problems are the things I don’t even see.”
Like many ag operations, Kingsclere Ranch has changed and diversified over the years. Originally a homestead, it became a dairy farm in the ’30s and then a beef cattle ranch in the ’60s. Today, it is primarily a cow-calf operation with about 300 breeder cows and a 500-head backgrounding lot. But, as diversity is a way of life on so many Canadian farms, Kingsclere also includes a public-private partnership woodlot, and an isolated canola-breeding research program for Monsanto. The evolving nature of this ranch means there’s lots of room for Braisher’s innovation, if it proves successful.
“My dad is very supportive of both my project and the work I’m doing with Brenda,” says Braisher. “At the end of the day in any business, something either contributes to the bottom line or it doesn’t. He sees the fact that I’m growing and learning as a person, and that it makes me more effective regardless of what the outcome is with the data collection tool.” CG
When city types look at Kingsclere Ranch Ltd., what they see is an iconic Canadian farm. Back-dropped by the snowcapped Rocky Mountains, the cow-calf operation seems somehow carved right out of an ocean of douglas fir and spruce near Golden, British Columbia.
When farmers look at the ranch, they understand that “carved” might be exactly the right word. A century ago, Edith and Alfred Braisher homesteaded the spectacular land, beating back forest to make room for the ranch’s first pastures and hay land, and keeping body and soul together through willpower, grit, and the few dollars that Alfred earned in his side job as stagecoach driver up and down the valley.
Four generations of Braishers later, Kingsclere today oozes all the things non-ranchers like to think go fist-in-glove with ranching, including history, permanence and tradition. But look a little closer and you’ll see another story. Youth, innovation, and technology are starting to shape this ranch, made possible by some high-powered mentoring.
Now 30 years old and bursting with enthusiasm for agriculture, Jeff Braisher has big dreams and big determination — the same combination that led to success for his great-grandparents. While co-running Kingsclere with his dad, John, Braisher is also going technological, focused on designing a new data collection system that he hopes will change the way he and other ranchers manage cattle.
Given Braisher’s contagious excitement for technology and his inspiring passion for the industry, you can’t help hoping his high-tech invention will evolve into a roaring success. But in a very real way, the technology is already a winner, because it is driving the farm forward. As he develops the technology, Braisher finds he is also developing helpful industry connections and a whole pile of knowledge that will serve him well through whatever path in agriculture he chooses.
That’s why this is a story about mentorship and its booming importance on Canadian farms. Yes, the details of Braisher’s story are unique, but the insight is universal. It’s all about the value of intergenerational knowledge sharing. It’s a standing ovation to agriculture’s tradition of community, and a call to action for would-be mentees and could-be mentors.